It has been nearly 450 years since Abul-Fath Gilani, a Persian physician at the North Indian court of the Mughal Emperor Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar, or Akbar the Great, first passed the smoke of tobacco through a small bowl of water to purify and cool the smoke. In this way, Abul-Fath Gilani invented the Hookah [depending on the region also known as Nargile, Argile, Gelyoun, Hubbly-Bubbly, Water Pipe, Qalyan, Shisha, etc.) and gave birth to a social and cultural phenomenon enjoyed by hundreds-of-millions worldwide.
In the last three decades, since the advent of flavored Shisha (Hookah Tobacco), Hookah use has gained popularity outside of its native regions, in South Asia and the Middle East, and is now used by people throughout North America, South America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa.
Hookahs are renowned for facilitating deep social interactions brought about through the process of deliberate breathing. Each puff of a Hookah forces a person to take a deliberate breath, and anyone familiar with meditation, Yoga, Martial Arts, or SCUBA and Free-Diving knows that the act of breathing deliberately, focusing on each inhale and exhale, slows a person down and, as individuals slow down, their attention is brought out of the chaos of daily life and into the tranquility of the present. Once people are present, conversations become more meaningful. They pay attention to what other people are saying and that attention is reciprocated. This process feeds on itself and the stories become deeper, the connection more meaningful, and people find themselves bonding over Abul-Fath Gilani's now famous invention. In this way, one can explore the validity of Mark Twain's statement regarding people that “(t)here was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.”
The typical Hookah is composed of six (6) parts: the head, where tobacco and/or other combustible materials are placed; the tray, where ash from charcoal, or debris from another heat source, is deposited; the stem, where the smoke from the head is drawn down into the base; the base, where the smoke from the stem is passed through water and other liquids; the hose, where the smoke from the base is drawn into the user's mouth; and the valve, where stale smoke from the base is purged out by blowing through the hose. The typical Hookah experience involves multiple people using the same Hookah by passing the hose from person-to-person.
Hookahs are used by smoking the combustible material in the head. The material in the head is typically combusted using a heat source; usually ignited charcoal. Heating the combustible material produces smoke, which is drawn into the water in the base through the stem. The stem is arranged to penetrate the surface of the water in the base to allow for filtration of the smoke obtained from the head. The user inhales the air from the base and induces a partial vacuum in the base that draws in smoke from the head through the stem into the base and finally through the hose to the user.
This arrangement requires that heat source, such as charcoal, or other heat source, be provided and suitably ignited. This heat source must be maintained during smoking so that the combustible material is suitably cooked without being overly burned. During this process, it is possible for by-products of combustion, such as volatile gasses, ultra-fine particles, and ash to be conducted into the water receptacle along with smoke which is intentionally generated by heating the tobacco or other combustible material. It is difficult at best to regulate the output or by-product of a combustion based heat source in order to prevent excess heat and therefore burning.
Burnt tobacco significantly diminishes the positive aspects of the Hookah experience; the tobacco, or other combustible materials, lose their flavor and produce malodorous foul-tasting clouds of smoke filled with excess particulates, including volatile gasses, ultra-fine particles, and ash. Because of the foregoing, it is necessary to cook tobacco, or other combustibles, within a narrow temperature band to maintain flavor, produce copious amounts of smoke, and avoid the release of the excess particulates identified above.
The Hookah Accessory application by Boutros et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/888,281, attempts to overcome the problem of properly cooking tobacco by utilizing a top tray configured to hold tobacco, a bottom tray configured to hold hot coal, a hollow rube in fluid communication with the top tray, and an attachment means for attaching the accessory to the Hookah. The bottom tray is attached to a cross bar that allows for it to be moved up and down such that the distance from the coal to the tobacco can be reduced or increased thereby reducing or increasing the amount of heat reaching the tobacco. The problem with the Hookah Accessory is that it does not provide for an easy method of swapping out charcoal without either first waiting for the bottom plate to cool or, alternatively unscrewing the bottom plate while it is still hot. Additionally, while it reduces the amount of large ash particles flowing into the smoke stream inhaled by the user, the proximity and position of the charcoal do nothing to diminish the inhalation of volatile gasses and ultrafine particles. Furthermore, the Hookah accessory appears to be bulky and inconvenient to use.
Therefore at this time, there are no products available to properly cook tobacco, or other combustibles, without introducing significant levels of volatile gasses, ultra-fine particles, and/or ash.